Many people think attending church is simply the fulfilment of their duty to God. They believe God requires them to attend church once a week, or at least on special feast days, and so they go and do their duty and expect nothing from the experience, except that hopefully they will have kept God on side, ie, pacified his anger/ earned his favour. The Bible, however, paints a very different picture of church. Church is about community. It's about life, love, encouragement, help, sympathy, joy, worship and restoration. The Bible describes the church as a body (1 Corinthians 12 v12-31). This image reveals to us that attending church is not about your individual duty to God, but about the way you relate to others. If you are a part of a body then you have both a responsibility, to use your strengths to benefit the rest of the body, and an entitlement, to rely on the strengths of others in your areas of weakness.
Being a part of a church gives us a perfect opportunity to fulfil the two commandments that Jesus stated were the most important, the ones which sum up and fulfil the whole of God's law: Love God and Love others (Mark 12 v29-31). When we come to church we should come, not just out of duty and obligation, but out of a desire to be a part of God's community. To help and be helped, to love and be loved, to encourage and be encouraged.
With this in mind it is important to get to know the people in our church. We are not just worshipping God in the same room as each other. We are actually serving God together when we help one another and when we combine our strengths to be more effective at helping others and bringing them into the knowledge of God. Sometimes we worry that we are only being spiritual when we are engaged in overtly spiritual activities like praying or listening to Bible teaching but God created the whole of life and is involved in every aspect of it that we invite Him into. There is great value in spending time together with people, encouraging one another and bringing joy and wisdom into each others lives. Make the most of BBQ's and times of relaxation and friendship, and recognise their spiritual value in helping us to be the most effective body we can be.
